


Keeping the Divide

by orphan_account



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, POV Jadzia Dax
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 19:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20087860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jadzia Dax died when a possessed Dukat hit her with an energy discharge. And Jadzia woke up.Basically, the Dax symbiont is removed and given to Ezri, but Jadzia is still alive. Needless to say, when Ezri shows up on the station, it's hard. For both of them.





	Keeping the Divide

One moment, Jadzia Dax was in the Bajoran shrine, thanking for the Prophets for enabling her and Worf to have a baby. For the first time in her life—Jadzia’s, not Dax’s—everything seemed to be truly as it should be.

And then the next moment, Dukat was there, and she was drawing her phaser, but she was too slow. Once, she wouldn’t have even had a phaser in a shrine, but this was war, wasn’t it? It came with many changes. Phasers in shrines; weekly casualty reports; and, apparently, crazed Cardassians attacking precants for no reason. Her last thought was about the baby that she and Worf would never have. _It would have been so beautiful…_

And then Jadzia Dax died.

-

Jadzia woke up.

She hadn’t been expecting to wake up, not after what she had assumed would be her death, but here she was. The infirmary ceiling arched above her, and Worf was there, pacing the room nervously. He rarely looked so vulnerable.

She called out to him softly. “Worf…”

He looked over at her, then turned and left to get Julian. His gaze had startled her. She would have expected joy or relief, even in someone as normally stoic and phlegmatic as Worf. But he looked scared, almost resentful. And sickeningly, he looked at her as if he didn’t know her.

She tried to dismiss this idea. She’d only caught a glimpse of him before he’d left; it didn’t make sense to put too much stock in something like that.

She felt different. Her abdomen hurt. Was it from where Dukat had hit her with that energy pulse? It felt as if something had been ripped out from inside of her. She hoped the symbiont was alright.

She’d ask Julian, who was already walking back in with Worf. His eyebrows were pulled together and his lips were pursed; he was clearly anxious. Worf hung back, refusing to meet her gaze.

What was going on?

“Jadzia,” Julian began, his hands clasped behind his back as if he was imitating her normal posture, “you were attacked in the Bajoran shrine.”

“I know,” she wheezed. “By Dukat.”

He shook his head. “A Pah-wraith, actually. It possessed him. And it hit you with some kind of energy discharge. I’ve never seen anything like it before, as a matter of fact. From a medical standpoint, it’s utterly fascinati—”

He stopped talking when Jadzia coughed, as if this were snapping him back to reality.

“Well,” he continued, “the discharge seriously injured you. You’re going to be alright, somehow. I think it has to do with the nature of the energy, but as I said, it’s not something I’ve seen before, so I can’t say for sure. And the symbiont was seriously injured.”

Jadzia instinctively placed her hand on her abdomen, where the symbiont was. The skin seemed to sag underneath her touch; she swallowed anxiously. “Is it going to be okay, Julian?” In the background, she noticed that Worf had turned even further away from her and was now staring out the door into the main part of the infirmary. She knew him well enough to know that he was deeply upset about something and didn’t want her to see his face. She looked back to Julian, who was still holding her gaze.

“Jadzia, I...I had to remove the symbiont.”

She gasped and tried to sit up straighter, sending a shooting pain through her side. “What’s happening? Can I be rejoined like I was when Verad stole the symbiont?” She winced at the obvious terror in her voice. She hadn’t sounded like that since before...well, in many years. She didn’t want to return to being that person.

Julian lowered his eyes at last, shaking his head. “No. It would be too traumatic, for both of you. It’s different this time. The energy beam…” He shook his head again. “Jadzia, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

She moved her hand from her abdomen to her face, covering it as she began to cry. She hadn’t felt this vulnerable and afraid in so long, and it wasn’t something she’d missed about being Jadzia Prel. She called out for Worf, hoping for some source of comfort, but he had left. Julian hovered awkwardly for a moment before gently rubbing her back and saying he’d check in on her again in a bit. When he left the room, she lowered her hand from her face and wrapped her arms around herself, curling up and sinking into the pillow behind her as she bawled.

She was completely and distinctly alone in a way she hadn’t been for years.

-

Worf came around, for the most part anyway. In many ways, life returned to a relative normal. Jadzia still had some of her memories—memories of memories, anyway—although she felt the gaps where her previous hosts had been. When Ben casually referenced an excursion of his and Curzon’s, she pretended to know what he was talking about, and he laughed and proclaimed her “the same old Dax.” She’d smiled and gone along with it, knowing that it wasn’t true, but not having the heart to spoil his fun. He needed it, after all; with the darkened orbs and the closed wormhole, the weight of the entire Alpha Quadrant was on his shoulders. He’d even considered returning to Earth to stay with his father for a bit, but he’d changed his mind; he was needed here.

She certainly was trying to be “the same old Dax.” She’d thought about going back to officially being Jadzia Prel but had decided against it, if only to make the people around her more comfortable. With the war raging, they didn’t need to be confused about their friend.

Or maybe she just didn’t want to risk losing or alienating them. Who could say?

She and Julian still met weekly in the replimat. They still talked about the same old things. She still teased him about his crush on Garak. He still asked about Worf and the baby that they were no longer having, ostensibly because of the risk to an injured Jadzia. Aside from his increasingly frequent suggestions that she talk to a therapist, everything was still as it was.

And yet it wasn’t. But it was close enough.

And Jadzia and Worf still found time to practice sparring in the holosuites. He still was aggressive and unreceptive to her humor. She still put up a good fight. He still won. She still used it as an opportunity to flirt. Aside from her growing disinterest in Klingon culture—something that had really come from Curzon, but that now felt like a distant memory—everything was still as it was.

And yet it wasn’t. And it wasn’t close enough. She could feel Worf pulling away from her. He considered himself to be too honorable to say anything, particularly when she was struggling, but she knew that he wasn’t happy anymore. She wasn’t the same woman he’d married less than a year ago. He didn’t deserve this, but she didn’t know what else to do. So she did her best to reproduce the old Jadzia Dax in everything she said and did.

After a few weeks of this, she decided to talk to Ben. It was strange to think that she had once been his mentor. The tables had really turned, hadn’t they?

She commed him, asking to talk, before making her way up to ops, ignoring the curious stares as she passed. Was she still a spectacle to them, even after all these weeks? The woman who should have died but, through a miracle, had instead been reborn? She did her best to ignore the looks.

She reached Ben’s door. Noticing for the first time that her arms were hanging limply by her side, she placed them behind her back and held one wrist with the opposite hand.

She let herself in. Ben was reading a PADD, but he looked up and grinned at her: a warm, genuine smile, the kind she hadn’t seen in weeks.

“Jadzia!” he greeted, getting up and moving to the chairs at the other end of his office. He gestured for her to sit next to him. “What did you want to talk about?”

She took her seat and paused for a minute, carefully formulating a response.

“Benjamin, I don’t belong here.”

He looked confused. “Here? On Deep Space Nine?”

She nodded.

“What do you mean, old man?”

“This, exactly!” She was waving her hands around wildly now. “I’m not Curzon. I’m not even Dax! I’m a new person. Or an old person. Someone I haven’t been in a long time, someone that nobody here knows me as. How can I find my place here when I’m just trying to fill the shoes of someone who has died?”

His smile turned sad. He sat up in his chair and placed his hands in his lap, lacing his fingers together.

“I’m sorry that you don’t feel like you belong here, old ma-” He stopped himself. “Jadzia. But you do. I know that you’re not Curzon. And I know that you’re not Dax, either. You’re Jadzia.”

“That’s what I mean…”

“I’m not finished. Curzon was my dearest friend. He was my mentor, almost like a second father to me. Jadzia Dax was not the same person as Curzon. Not entirely, anyway. But she was my friend, too, dearer to me than Curzon ever was. And you, Jadzia, may not be the person as her, but you are my friend nonetheless. I’m sorry if you don’t feel like you belong on this station, but don’t think that its officers don’t love you as Jadzia. We do.”

“Thank you, Benjamin. That means a lot.” She was having trouble forming words; she was getting choked up now.

“You’re welcome...Jadzia.”

The pause then was comfortable, natural. They sat for a few minutes in silence, just enjoying each other’s company.

Finally, Jadzia said, “I know that I can’t be what everyone wants me to be. Especially Worf. And I’m not going to try. I’m going to be myself, and I hope that that’s why they—he—come to want, even if it’s not what they want right now.”

Ben smiled. “Sounds like a good plan.”

Jadzia stood up to go, feeling for the first time in weeks like she had a handle on herself and her situation. She gave Ben a hug, and they held each other for a few seconds until she said, “I have to go.”

Before he could respond, Colonel Kira’s voice came over the comm system. “Captain, there’s a woman here to see you. She says she’s-”

“Send her in,” he said, moving toward the door to the office. Jadzia hovered behind. Surely if he wanted her to go, he would tell her? He sat down at his desk just as the door slid open and a young Trill woman with short, dark hair stepped through. She looked around quickly, but Jadzia had slunk back into the corner, hiding from...something, and the woman didn’t notice her.

She was looking at the captain. “Hello, Benjamin.” Did he know her? Jadzia didn’t recognize this woman.

Ben seemed to have the same thought. “Do I know you?” he asked, smiling almost nervously.

If he was anxious, then this woman was a nervous wreck. She returned his expression and responded quietly, “It’s me, Dax.”

Jadzia gasped audibly, drawing the attention of the woman—Dax. She had known there would be another one, but…

Dax looked over, and her eyes widened as she saw Jadzia. It felt like looking in a mirror and seeing her own emotions reflected back at her.

Jadzia was not this person. She wasn’t even Dax. And yet she was seeing herself. It was dizzying.

Stammering out some kind of apology to Ben, she fumbled toward the door. Dax was frozen there, and Jadzia pushed past her, managing to make it to the turbolift before breaking down in tears.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm going to try to post the next chapter in a few days.


End file.
